Gamification in the EFL Classroom
Definition: What is Gamification? Gamification is the transfer of typical game elements and operations in a non-game context. Typical game elements are descriptions, points or rewards. Typical game operations are dealing with different tasks or activities. Gamification engages and motivates people to achieve their goals and maybe change their behaviour. It can be seen as a technique to drive a persons motivation towards its intrinsic motivation by the use of typical game elements. In contrast to "play" and "playing" which is a more free, expressive and improvisational form "game" and "gaming" can be seen as the other side of the coin. It is structured, has certain rules and aims at a goal or outcome. These game elements employed in application, websites, communities and so on are used to support motivation and to make a commitment to this product because users feel they have a benefit. Advantages and Disadvantages of Gamification in the EFL Classroom: Examples for Gamification: In the following you find two tables that should help you to get an idea about employed gamification in our every day life. The first one lists branches with common examples and their game elements. The second one goes a little deeper on motivational aspects and their behavoiuoral outcome and helps with futher analysis. (Please feel free to add to these tables.) Example for fitnes and activity tracker Garmin Connect (application) Garmin Connect is the name of the application of Garmin, a Company producing fitness and outdoor wearables. Over the last few years "activity tracking" has become very popular and there are many products, mostly wrist bands and watches on the market. There are two ways of tracking activity. "GPS" assistet tracking giving detailed information about the track, pace and even altitude and simple "pedometer" which recalculate pace and distance according to one´s stepcount. Every device connects via bluetooth to smartphone, tablet or laptop and loads data into the application. Many other companies e.g. Fitbit, TomTom, Jawbone, Polar, Sony, Samsung, Apple, LG, Huaway and many more offer activity tracker and have their own App. This is an overview of "Garmin Connect" to show and hightlight a few game elements in a non-game context. The application is very complex because it is compatible with every model of Garmin activity/fitness product. It takes some time to get to know all the different kinds of overview and to find the one that shows the information one needs. Starting from the overview "My day" one can see "steps", "sleep" "kalories" and explore every aspect in a more detailed overview. The option "MyfitnessPal" links you with friends from the online community. It allows to connect and compete in challenges. Social pressure is always useful to motivate and/or remind oneself to get active. There is the “Newsfeed” for a quick overwiev of the stepcount of previous days and an overview of previous activities tracked by the stopwatch. Aside from this overview there is a calendar overview that displays differently coloured bars. The blue one shows whether the daily aim was reached (completely blue) or whether not (striped blue). The green one marks an activity and the purple one the amount of sleep. In addition one little orange flag marks a received badge (milestone). FAQ: Q: What is the difference between a game in the classroom and Gamification? A: part is under maintenance Sources: Caillois, R. Man, Play, and Games. University of Illinois Press, Urbana, Chicago, 2001. http://www.garmin.com/de-DE/company/about[http://www.garmin.com/de-DE/company/about] https://www.amadeu-antonio-stiftung.de/w/files/pdfs/gaming-internet-1.pdf -> Taking a look at computer games from a political perspective - in how far are "gaming and hate speech" related? Great on-topic article: "Das Computerspiel in Bildungskontexten" Persuasive Games: Exploitationware http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6366/persuasive_games_exploitationware.php -> Very critical opinion piece about problems of gamification by Ian Bogost ("video-game designer and media philosopher") http://hideandseek.net/2010/10/06/cant-play-wont-play/ -> Very critical opinion piece about problems of gamification by Margaret Robertson (game designer) https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhyKYa0YJ_5CGkK6JpIagshOH0k4hi3vD -> Educational Youtube-Videos about gamification. Less of an academic source and more of a very helpful way to get familiar with the content